Chapter 7: Chapter 7
Dark Sky Full Moon.
The trajectory of the low-hanging black full moon lightly swept past the surging men in black.
Thud-thud-thud-thud-thump!
Along with the sound of something bursting in succession, blood and flesh scattered wildly in the air.
Cheon Woo-jin’s gaze moved swiftly from left to right.
Half of the rushed-in personnel had already pulled their bodies back.
No matter how much they held back their power, the men in black were by no means at a level of skill that the young generation could contend with.
“Wh-what?”
Song Yi-yeon let out a hollow laugh at the scene that had unfolded in an instant.
The martial prowess of the rushing men in black was quite high. A level where alone, one could handle at most two or three?
There were as many as twenty such men in black. Although Zhuge Rin and Cheon Woo-jin were present, he thought it would be a tough fight.
However, it was a misjudgment.
In the time a single brief breath passed between the martial artists.
Five men in black lay sprawled on the ground with their heads crushed.
He could not even properly grasp it. Something black merely grazed by in a blur, and immediately blood burst forth.
Song Yi-yeon stared blankly at Cheon Woo-jin.
‘Even if I fight with full strength, certain defeat.’
Since boarding the ship heading for the Martial Alliance, he had never once displayed his full strength.
He had intentionally held back during the grading process as well. Because he wished to be in the same group as Cheon Woo-jin.
Inwardly, he was more confident in his skills than anyone else.
He was convinced that if he did his utmost, there would be few among the young generation under the heavens who could rival him.
Yet from Cheon Woo-jin’s single strike, he felt a towering wall. A high wall that could never be overcome no matter what means and methods were employed, whose end could not even be fathomed.
Of course, it was Zhuge Rin who was just as shocked as Song Yi-yeon.
Unlike the recruits who were merely blinking their eyes, the level of those two was high.
The men in black exchanged glances.
Naturally, the ones most astonished were neither Song Yi-yeon nor Zhuge Rin, but them. They had believed they only needed to deal with the Martial Alliance applicants and one greenhorn instructor.
– Leader, he is an expert we cannot contend with.
At his subordinate’s sound transmission, the man called the leader also deeply agreed. He could tell from that strike just now. Though he could not gauge Cheon Woo-jin’s martial prowess, at the very least, he was no match for them.
The man in black called the leader slowly assessed the situation.
‘One unfathomable expert and a woman of the Zhuge Clan.’
The situation was not good, but the fortunate point was that they were encumbered by greenhorn recruits.
If he utilized this properly, they could sufficiently escape from this place.
– Target the recruits. Cut their ankles to restrict their movements, then take them hostage.
The leader’s sound transmission drifted out, and the men in black relayed the order among themselves.
It was at that moment.
Swish.
Cheon Woo-jin stood the Crescent Moon Staff before the recruits.
As if he meant to protect them.
At that sight, the eyes of the men in black narrowed.
They had not yet made any move.
Yet Cheon Woo-jin acted in advance, as if he had overheard their sound transmission.
Right about the time the gazes of the men in black were wavering.
“Vice Squad Leader.”
“Uh, uh…?”
Flustered, Zhuge Rin blurted out informal speech without realizing it.
Of course, Cheon Woo-jin did not care.
After gauging the martial prowess of the men in black and the recruits for a brief moment, Cheon Woo-jin continued speaking.
“Young Hero Song and Vice Squad Leader, please protect the recruits. It seems those fellows intend to target them to escape this situation.”
Ching.
Without the slightest hesitation, Song Yi-yeon drew his saber and stood as if to shield the recruits.
Soon, Zhuge Rin blocked the opposite side of Song Yi-yeon.
Though the martial prowess of the men in black was quite high, if the two avoided a direct clash and focused on blocking, they would easily be able to buy enough time.
His mind feeling much more at ease, Cheon Woo-jin lightly swung the Crescent Moon Staff in the air.
Whoosh!
Even though it was merely a light motion, a heavy sound of tearing air burst out. Although the attack was not aimed at them, a chill ran down the spines of the men in black.
The gazes of the men in black and Cheon Woo-jin crossed in midair.
No one opened their mouth. The air grew taut like a drawn bowstring.
Rustle.
The footstep of a man in black.
At that exact moment, Cheon Woo-jin’s gaze turned toward him.
“The one who runs away dies first.”
In an instant, the man in black who was about to flee froze in place.
The men in black exchanged glances. They had met Cheon Woo-jin here for the first time. Yet they instinctively sensed that he was a man who unfailingly kept his word.
In the end, there was only one answer.
The men in black exchanged glances, and the corners of Cheon Woo-jin’s lips curled up in a smirk.
“Strike!”
Simultaneously with the leader’s shout, about a dozen men in black stationed in all directions surged toward Cheon Woo-jin alone.
Pitch-black flashes brushed past the recruits and the instructors. They aimed solely for Cheon Woo-jin.
In the first place, if only Cheon Woo-jin were killed, the woman of the Zhuge Clan and the recruits would not pose much of a threat.
“Ch-Cheon Young Hero!”
Someone shouted urgently.
About a dozen men in black were converging onto a single point at tremendous speed, and at the center was Cheon Woo-jin.
Yet Cheon Woo-jin merely stood there without taking even a single step.
That sight looked exceedingly precarious.
About a dozen straight sabers surged to tear Cheon Woo-jin apart. Cheon Woo-jin calmly waved the Crescent Moon Staff.
Clang-clang-clang-clang-clang!
In an instant, hundreds of exchanges passed.
The straight sabers of the men in black could not inflict even the slightest scratch upon the Crescent Moon Staff. Cheon Woo-jin perceived all of the dozen or so straight sabers without missing a single one. What could be avoided, he avoided; if difficult, he blocked.
However, minor scratches were gradually appearing across Cheon Woo-jin’s whole body. Cheon Woo-jin also thrust his Crescent Moon Staff without fail whenever an opening showed, and.
Thump!
Whenever he did, somewhere on the men in black burst apart.
On the surface, it seemed a neck-and-neck situation.
However, deep inside, the men in black felt certain.
‘We can win.’
Considering his apparent age, the fellow’s martial prowess was truly astounding. If the fight dragged on, the probability of the men in black losing was high.
However, they had a hidden move up their sleeves.
Tiger Hunt Dark Flash.
The dark flash that hunts tigers.
Just like its name, it was a combined strike formation crafted to tear an expert to death in a single instant.
– Prepare formation.
At the leader’s sound transmission, the eyes of the men in black changed.
They slowly gathered their energy and prepared a single strike. Even while doing so, they showed no outward sign whatsoever. The most crucial aspect of the Tiger Hunt Dark Flash was raising their level all at once to fluster an expert.
Under the relentless saber strikes of the men in black, Cheon Woo-jin took a deep breath for a moment. The extremely trained men in black did not miss that fleeting instant.
‘The fellow is exhausted.’
Convinced, the leader once again sent a sound transmission.
– Execute formation!
Soon, the speed of the foremost man in black became incomparably faster than before. He thrust a straight saber as black as ink into Cheon Woo-jin’s heart.
Starting with this, about a dozen straight sabers slashed and stabbed all over Cheon Woo-jin’s body.
Everyone thought so.
‘…There is no sensation.’
They had clearly pierced him, but there was no sensation of cutting through flesh or bone.
Soon, they realized their straight sabers were cutting through empty air. What they believed to be Cheon Woo-jin blurred and vanished in an instant.
The pupils of the men in black rolled rapidly from side to side.
Even though they checked all around in a flash, he was not there.
If so, only one place remained.
As if they were seasoned martial artists after all, the men in black immediately raised their heads and gripped their straight sabers tightly.
As expected, Cheon Woo-jin was falling from midair.
However, following with the eyes and reacting were worlds apart. Toward the men in black who had prepared in their own way, Cheon Woo-jin descended while holding the Crescent Moon Staff high.
The men in black momentarily smiled in triumph.
Nothing was easier to catch than a martial artist suspended in midair.
Unless the opponent was an expert capable of void-stepping.
However, Cheon Woo-jin had no need for void-stepping.
Crash!
Before the heavily descending Crescent Moon Staff, their fragile ink-colored straight sabers shattered in droves.
The men in black widened their eyes and tried to pull their bodies back, but…
Thud-thump!
Cheon Woo-jin’s Crescent Moon Staff was a step faster.
Their heads and shoulders were shattered one after another.
Landing firmly amid the blood scattered in all directions, Cheon Woo-jin looked at the fallen men in black and spoke in a low voice.
“Was that just now the Tiger Hunt Dark Flash?”
The five men in black who had barely clung to their lives gasped for breath. Because they had never imagined that the name of their combined strike formation would come out from the mouth of a Martial Alliance applicant.
Cheon Woo-jin closely examined their aura.
Their energy was somehow familiar.
‘It strangely resembles Master Black Elder.’
Furthermore, the Tiger Hunt Dark Flash was a formation he had heard about from his master in the past. The Dark Emperor, a giant of the previous generation who had produced countless villains. The combined strike formation his disciples had created to kill the Dark Emperor was none other than the Tiger Hunt Dark Flash.
– Of course, it was a meaningless deed. The Dark Emperor was not such an easy man, you see.
Master Black Elder’s rare, bitter smile was still vivid in his mind. It seemed those people were also villains serving one of Master Black Elder’s fellow disciples.
While Cheon Woo-jin was lost in thought, Zhuge Rin asked.
“Cheon Young Hero, may we bind them first?”
They were people who had disrupted the Martial Alliance’s event.
Duly, they had to be escorted, but since the one who resolved this was Cheon Woo-jin, she asked him first.
When Cheon Woo-jin nodded, only then did Zhuge Rin, Song Yi-yeon, and the recruits move.
Yet everyone appeared somewhat half out of their minds.
Because the fight of Cheon Woo-jin they had witnessed just now simply would not leave their heads. In particular, Zhuge Rin, who possessed the highest level among them, had received the greatest shock.
‘Perhaps he is stronger than the Squad Leader…’
Even while tapping the acupoints of the men in black and tying them up, Zhuge Rin glanced repeatedly at Cheon Woo-jin.
She was still curious about that man. But if it had been closer to pure curiosity before, now she was genuinely curious about his true identity.
He was by no means an ordinary member of the young generation.
Zhuge Rin was someone who had seen countless talents of the young generation called geniuses while working in the Martial Alliance.
However, Cheon Woo-jin was on a different level. It was to the extent that the legends of the Martial Alliance Leader Bukli Cheon, which she had always only heard of, naturally came to mind.
While the men in black, who had long lost their will to fight, were meekly bound, Cheon Woo-jin wiped away the blood on the Crescent Moon Staff. Although it was merely a weapon, it was, after all, a relic of his master.
‘If they are villains rooted in the Dark Emperor, they have no reason to go around small villages committing such primal evil deeds.’
The villains who carried on the lineage of the Dark Emperor had already made prominent names in the present era. For what reason would their disciples violate women and slaughter men in small villages?
There was certainly another pretext.
Cheon Woo-jin, who had attained a very deep understanding of the nature of villains through Black Elder, was certain.
‘Furthermore, they were waiting in advance for us to come. This means there is a high possibility that information leaked from within the Martial Alliance…’
One person came to mind.
Gu Jin-seok, who had acted tyrannically without fear.
Yet no matter what, would a talent of the Righteous Path do such a thing?
After pondering for a long time, Cheon Woo-jin soon shook his head.
“I can just find out.”
As befitted the reputation of her clan, Zhuge Rin also seemed to have already noticed such points. She was already interrogating the men in black in her own way.
However, none of them intended to open their mouths.
Zhuge Rin seized one of the men in black and tortured him according to the prescribed methods of the Martial Alliance.
“Urgggh…”
The man in black groaned in agony, yet refused to open his mouth until the end. Although Zhuge Rin was the youngest Vice Squad Leader of the Martial Alliance, even so, she was a youthful martial artist who had not even reached thirty.
There was no way she was accustomed to torture, and the Martial Alliance humanely restricted on-site torture methods.
Of course, if they did not open their mouths here, they would be escorted to an organ of the Martial Alliance with the authority to torture and undergo grueling torture, but…
Cheon Woo-jin did not have that much patience.
Cheon Woo-jin approached without a word.
At that, not only Zhuge Rin, who was torturing the man in black, but everyone looked at him.
“Who is the leader?”
One man in black raised his hand.
After scanning the faces of the others, Cheon Woo-jin nodded. Seeing that the martial prowess of the fellow who raised his hand was the highest and his aura was well-composed, he seemed to be the leader.
Cheon Woo-jin lightly swung the Crescent Moon Staff.
Thump!
The head of one man in black burst apart just like that.
Everyone looked at Cheon Woo-jin with shocked faces.
Regardless, Cheon Woo-jin looked at the leader’s face, swung the Crescent Moon Staff once more, and another man’s head burst with a thump.
Soon, Cheon Woo-jin approached the leader with the blood-dripping Crescent Moon Staff hanging downward.
The man in black looked back and forth between Cheon Woo-jin and the Crescent Moon Staff.
The fear that the dark iron staff might smash his head at any moment deeply settled into his heart.
Recalling the way Black Elder conducted torture, Cheon Woo-jin spoke in a quiet voice.
“Two are left. The next will likely be your turn.”
The leader looked at the two subordinates sitting side by side next to him. Because it was a clear warning that after they all died, he would kill him.
Cheon Woo-jin’s words continued.
“Tell me a story I might want to hear.”
“…”
The man in black closed his mouth.
When a very brief moment passed, Cheon Woo-jin swung the Crescent Moon Staff without lingering hesitation.
Thud.
Just like that, another man in black collapsed to the ground with his head crushed.
“One is left.”